“I had good luck getting it,” Jimmy said, and told him precisely what he had found out, and turned the copies of the registration cards over to him.
Elmo studied the copies, walked around his desk and sat down. “Too bad it had to be Burt’s boy.” He shook his head and smiled. “No beaches and backseats for that little gal. No bugs and bushes for her. She travels first class. Whether it’s any use to us, then, depends on how much he thinks of his little girl.”
“We can assume he’s partial to her.”
“You look beat and you talk mean, Jimmy. You tired?”
“A little. This isn’t my normal line of work.”
“It’s a little special for all of us. But don’t you start bleeding for her, hear? She’s a little girl got herself a husky young buck to while away the long summer with. You sure Burt’s boy is seventeen?”
“Positive.”
“I’ll have to check the law on it with Leroy, but I got the idea she’s been tampering with the morals of a minor. And there’s some kind of an ordinance about conspicuous cohabitation, but I don’t know as it would fit this here situation.”
“I hope this won’t turn into some kind of a public mess.”
Elmo looked benignly at him. “Now, if there is any way in the world of this turning into a public mess, this girl’s father is going to be the first one in the world to want to prevent it. The way I see it, those men that run fast and loose through all the women they can reach, it’s an entirely different thing when it comes to their own daughters. He might be right sensitive about this, Jimmy.”
“He might be.”
Elmo leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “There’s another way to go at it too. There’s no way in the world this little girl could prove it was Burt’s boy with her these two times. She could be claiming it was Burt’s boy just because if it came out it was somebody else, it would be a worse mess.”
“I don’t see what you...”
“She could be trying to hide the fact it was actual old Tom Jennings seducin’ her. Two birds with one stone, you could say.”
“Now wait a minute!”
“I was just thinking out loud.”
“But I don’t want anybody making it into more than...”
“Hold it!” Elmo said sharply, raising both hands. “Lord God, what the hell kind of game are we playing here? Get yourself back in focus, boy. What are we talking about? Robbing the poor? We got a snotty little rich girl playing around with Burt Lesser’s innocent boy. And we got Dial Sinnat, with more money than Carter got pills, and a little cute-ass wife a quarter century younger than him. And they’re outsiders, boy! They come down here from Rochester, New York, or some goddam place like that. You and I were born and raised here. If they died here, they wouldn’t even be buried here. And if they decide they don’t like it, they can go any damn place in the world and live fat. You look at that committee list. There isn’t a one of them didn’t come here from some other place. What the hell right have they got telling us what to do with the landscape we were raised in? Boy, you act as if I’m going to skin those folks, salt ’em down and fry ’em. All I’m going to do is give a little bitty nudge here and there, just enough to make every one of them take a sudden disinterest in Grassy Bay. I want to do it nice and gentle, with your help. If you haven’t got the stomach for a little thing like this, a little job that’s going to work out fine for everybody, with nobody getting hurt bad, then I can have Leroy bring some folks in who maybe set their feet down a lot heavier than you and me. Now, I’m not going to do any more thinking out loud. I’ll maybe find a good way to use this, and maybe I won’t, but you don’t have to know about it if it makes you feel easier. This is the way the world works, boy. This is the way things get done. You should know that much by now.”
“How do things get done, Elmo?”
“Why, I was just now... Is there more to that question?”
“I was wondering about Martin Cable the Third. And I was wondering about Eloise. How did you get things done with Eloise, Mister Commissioner?”
“She’s a fine-looking woman.”
“Lately she’s taking a big interest in local economics. Martin says she’s real bright about it.”
“You know, you’re being real bright too.”
“Thanks.”
“You ever see that shack Leroy has down in the Taylor Tract east of Everset?”
“No.”
“He calls it a shack, but it’s more a lodge, I guess. Fifty-some acres he’s got down there, gate and cattle guard and a little old windy road going in, so you’d never know he had it fixed up so nice back in there. It’s about the onliest place Leroy can get away from his maw. He’s got power going in there. He’s even got an unlisted phone. Real fine. I guess Eloise has been going down there off and on for six, eight months, little afternoon visits like. There were only three knew about it, them and me. Now it’s four. He’s been teaching her about business, you might say. Martin is a stubborn man, but when he won’t listen to her, she just won’t have anything to do with that poor man at all. And he’s been coming around to her way of thinking. Or Leroy’s way, you might say.”
“Or your way.”
“But she doesn’t know that. She’s just real anxious to help Leroy. Somehow she’s got the idea that unless this development goes through, Leroy is ruined. She’s got a tender heart.”
“I’ll be damned!”
“Leroy wouldn’t like you acting all that surprised, Jimmy. Women take to that old boy.”
“It’s pretty stupid for her to get into something like that, isn’t it?”
Elmo shrugged. “I don’t guess Martin is the most exciting fella in the world for a woman like that to be married to. Granting you it’s stupid for her to fool around at all, she’s doing better with Leroy than if it was some fathead who’d get all carried away and get careless and get them caught. Or take it too serious. A man like Leroy, he understands women like Eloise. They want a little spice on account they get bored, but they don’t want to take any chance on messing up their marriage. Leroy is careful, and he pleasures them nice and he talks the sweet way they like to hear. But if they try to take charge, if they get uppity with him, he takes a switch to them, and that’s something new and different for them too, not getting any of that kind of treatment at home. Leroy, he says he doesn’t see her as often as it could be arranged, because she’s one godawful strenuous woman. He took up with her because we had it figured out that she could help us out with Martin. And she’s done just fine.”
Jimmy pictured Leroy Shannard, the thick white hair, the lean, hard, brown, sleepy face, the wise, remote, indolent eyes, the soft and cynical voice. He imagined Shannard with Eloise, and the match became more plausible — a cautious, civilized lechery appealing to her peasant shrewdness.
Jimmy sighed and said, “I’ve been around. I know a hell of a lot of things I couldn’t put in the paper. But you are beginning to make me feel wet behind the ears, Elmo.”
“Keep standing in the wind and you’ll dry off fast. The next one on the list, Jimmy, is that Doris Rowell. Next to Sinnat, she worries me the most. She does too good a job lining up those fish experts and erosion people. You get onto her next. Get her out of the picture, and maybe we won’t have so many people down here using big words and confusing the voters. But you get some sleep. You did fine on this, but you don’t look so good.”
As Jimmy Wing was heading north on Cable Key toward his cottage, he looked at his watch and saw that it was ten minutes of two. The neon of the Sea Oat Lounge was just ahead, on his left. He was exhausted, but he knew his nerves were so raw he would not sleep without some assistance, such as a couple of quick strong drinks. He braked sharply and turned in and parked. There were three other cars in front of the place.